CenturyLink, a telecommunications company, is looking to boost its cloud offerings with the purchase of Tier 3, which is a Seattle-based cloud computing start-up.
The acquisition will make CenturyLink, which is headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, compete directly with Amazon, IBM and Verizon Communications' Terremark.
"Our mission is to provide world-class managed services to global businesses on virtual, dedicated, and colocation infrastructures," said Von Deylen, president of CenturyLink's Savvis unit. "From greenfield development to mission-critical apps, businesses have a trusted technology partner to seize new market opportunities. This acquisition underscores our continued commitment to delivering the most complete portfolio of cloud services."
"Tier 3's innovative automation and self-service platform are game-changing for our global enterprise clients," Deylen said.
While CenturyLink did not disclose the amount for which it acquired Tier 3, according to Reuters' source, the price was around $200 million. Tier 3 reportedly has $18.5 million in investment from Ignition Partners, Intel Capital and Madrone Venture Group.
This is the second cloud computing service acquisition for CenturyLink this year. The company bought AppFog, a Cloud-Foundry based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) company, in June, marking its foray into the PaaS market.
Earlier, in 2011, CenturyLink, which is based in Monroe, Lousisiana, had acquired Qwest Communications and Savvis, boosting its cloud computing portfolio.
Per research firm Gartner, Tier 3 is ranked No. 3 after Amazon Web Services and CSC BizCloud, when it comes to top-notch cloud providers.
